Never Let Go
by snapple79
Summary: Based on the promos for 3x13. Spoilers if you haven't seen the promos yet, so full summary inside.


Based on the promos for 3x13 where Andy is holding a grenade. What leads up to the incident and what happens when Sam arrives?

The promos got me super excited and this one-shot immediately starting building in my head. Let me know what you think and leave a review. :)

Disclaimer: I don't own Rookie Blue.

* * *

**Never Let Go**

Andy stood next to Dov in the parade room listening to Frank explain how important it was to find Jon Grey and the young girl he'd abducted. She was kicking herself for letting him get away, but realized an entire prisoner transport team had let him escape, so she shouldn't be too hard on herself. Still, her aching cheekbone was a constant reminder that he'd been able to overpower her and run off. So, she had something to prove today.

"Serve, protect and catch this guy," Frank said, sending them on their way.

"Meet you at the cruiser in five?" Dov asked, looking at Andy.

She nodded and walked out of the room, her mission for coffee suspended when she saw Sam waiting for her in the hallway. Intending to just walk by him, her feet had other ideas, planting her to the ground when he approached.

"You okay?" he asked, glancing at her red cheek.

"Yeah, yeah," she said shaking her head. "It's nothing. I'm fine."

He quirked his eyebrows, not believing her. "You took a good hit there." He resisted the urge to reach out, cup her cheek in his hand and rub his thumb gently against her quickly forming bruise.

Andy shrugged. "It's not your job to care anymore." And with that she walked away. She couldn't take his longing stares anymore. They'd started a couple weeks earlier and it was unnerving. _He_ was the one who ended things. _He _was the one who left her without fighting for their relationship. _He _was the one who made these choices. So, he didn't get to be the one looking longingly at her again. He didn't get to stir these feelings - feelings she tried so hard to forget - up in her again. He made a choice for the both of them and she was trying to live with it, as hard as it was.

Sam watched her walk away and cursed himself. _If you love her, you'll let her go _was the mantra he kept telling himself. It was getting harder and harder to do that though as other words kept trying to fill his head. _You love her too much to let her go_. He shook the thoughts from his head and went to find Oliver, so they could head out on patrol.

* * *

Andy and Dov were trying to put Jon Grey's clues together as the search for the missing girl led them to a large building. Andy radioed in their position before they began searching the place.

"You take the left and I'll take the right," Andy said, as they reached a long hallway. They needed to clear place faster and splitting up was the only option at this point. When she heard muffled sounds coming from an unused freezer, Andy slowly opened the large door and tried not to show her shock at seeing the young girl's hand taped to a grenade. "Help me! Help me!" the girl cried.

"It's okay, it's gonna be okay," Andy said, walking over to the girl. After quickly assessing the situation, she put a comforting hand on the girl's shoulder and spoke into her radio. "This is McNally. I found the girl. She's strapped to a grenade."

"I'm scared. I'm scared. He said it'll go off if I take my hand off it," the girl said, tears running freely down her face.

"Okay, okay, here's what we're gonna do. I'm gonna pull the tape off first. Keep your hand still, okay?" When the girl nodded, Andy slowly removed the duct tape from the girl's hand and the bomb. "You're going to give it to me." When the girl protested, Andy gripped her hand and repeated her order. "You're going to give it to me. I'm gonna slide my hand under yours."

As Dov appeared in the doorway, the girl was removing her hand completely, but with Andy's back toward the door, he couldn't see where the bomb was. "Wow, you got it out of her hand..." he trailed off as Andy turned around.

"Dov, get her out of here. Get her outside."

"I'm not leaving you, Andy."

"Dov, go! Get her safe. Tell ETF where I am." She looked down at her fingers that were wrapped around the grenade. "I'm not going anywhere."

"This is 1509. An officer has taken the place of the girl. I repeat, the girl is free, but we have an officer in danger," he said into his radio, before he put an arm around the young girl and reluctantly headed outside.

* * *

Meanwhile, Sam and Oliver had been tracking down leads of their own and were on their way to another when Oliver brought up the elephant in the cruiser. "So...how's McNally?" he asked as he drove them through the streets of Toronto.

"Fine." Sam looked out the passenger window hoping his friend would get the hint that he didn't want to talk about Andy.

"She took a good hit there this morning."

"Yup." Apparently, he didn't get the hint, as Sam continued to give one word answers.

"You need to get your head out of your ass, brother," Oliver said, sick of seeing his friend miserable.

"What the hell are you talking about, Ollie?" Sam asked, glaring at his friend.

"Don't give me that. Stop torturing yourself and her, and tell her how much you care about her," he said.

"It's not that simple," Sam replied. Maybe he deserved to torture himself after what he did. He promised her he'd never leave without a fight and that's exactly what he did. "She hates me. I'd hate me too, the way I acted."

"It's McNally. She might be pissed, but she could never hate you. Talk to her," Oliver said.

"I've tried - "

"Standing in front of her with your mouth hanging open doesn't mean you've tried talking to her," Oliver said, smirking. "Actually talk. And make her listen."

"It's not that simple."

"Stop saying that. Make it that simple. Don't let her slip away."

Sam didn't have a chance to respond before the subject of their conversation popped up on the radio announcing that she'd found the missing girl. He flipped the lights on as Oliver sped to their location. They were a block away when Dov's voice filled their cruiser. And when he said an officer was in danger, Sam knew it was Andy. Andy was now holding the grenade.

Sam was out of the cruiser before Oliver brought it to a full stop, and was running toward Dov, who was exiting the building. "Where is she?" he demanded.

"Second floor, to the right, end of the hallway," Dov replied. Sam yanked the door open and rushed into the building.

He found her quickly, his feet instinctively knowing where to take him.

Once Dov had left with the girl, Andy truly realized what she'd done. She'd traded the girl's life for hers. She took a few deep breaths as she tried to calm her rapidly beating heart. As long as she kept her hand securely around the grenade, it wouldn't go off, couldn't go off. She kept repeating that in an effort to remain calm and not move. It wasn't working. What was she thinking? She could've waited for ETF to arrive and let them handle the girl and the bomb. But no, she had to step in when she saw the fear in the girl's eyes. The same fear that was probably in her eyes now.

She heard footsteps and was about to curse Dov for coming back when she saw Sam appear in the doorway. "Sam, what are you doing? You shouldn't be here."

"I want to be here."

"Sam..." It came out as a breathless sigh, but he could hear the traces of fear in her voice.

"Why'd you take the grenade?" He walked toward her slowly, never taking his eyes off her hand and what she held in it.

"She's a young girl, a life ahead of her. I couldn't let her stay," she said, tears starting to fill her eyes. She shrugged, trying to fight away the emotion. "And it's our job." A single tear escaped and slowly slid down her cheek.

"ETF will be here soon. We'll get you out of here," he said, using his TO voice to take control of the situation and comfort her.

"Why are you here Sam?"

"What do you mean?"

"You shouldn't be here. I'm the one with a bomb in her hand. Go outside, wait for ETF," she said.

"No. You're here. I'm here."

"Why?" she asked again.

Sam was frustrated with himself for not being able to articulate what he wanted to say, how he wanted to explain his reasons for acting the way he did. "I wish you were in my head. I wish you could read my mind."

"What are you talking about?" she questioned.

"I love you, Andy."

The walls she had built up after Sam ended their relationship began to crumble as if his eyes were lasers. Another tear escaped, following the same path as the one before it. More tears threatened to break through as she stared back at him. Tears for the situation she found herself in, for his words, for the last month and a half. They were the three words Andy had longed to hear, even though she once told him she didn't near to hear them. But he left her, walked out on them and refused to even talk to her for nearly a month if it wasn't work related. He tore her heart apart and now as she stood with a grenade in her hand, he decided to tell her how he felt.

"Sam, I'm holding a bomb."

He took a step closer to her and wrapped his hands around hers. "So am I."

She looked at him with her big brown doe eyes and he fell in love all over again. Truthfully, he'd never fallen out of love, despite how much he tried to push himself away, push her away. He'd tried to make her hate him with the words he threw at her. But the look in her eyes told him he never succeeded...and he couldn't be more relieved.

"I'm not leaving here until you do," he said.

"What if I don't?"

"We're _both_ leaving here, McNally."

Their radios crackled to life. "ETF is five minutes out."

* * *

Andy sat on the bench in front of her locker tying her boots. It was quiet and several of the lights had been turned off to save energy, so it was quiet and dark, just what she wanted right now. Today had been a roller-coaster of emotions, topped off by the fact she had almost died when she decided to take the place of the young girl. But, it was her job. They took life and death chances every day.

She heard the door open, but didn't need to look up to see who was walking toward her as she recognized his footsteps. He sat down next to her, but was careful not to touch her. "Hey...you did good today," Sam said.

"Just did my job." Her eyes found a spot on the floor to focus on so she wouldn't have to look at him.

"You wanna talk about it?"

She wasn't sure if he was talking about what happened today or about them. Either way, she really didn't want to talk. "Nope."

"Need a ride?"

Traci had been called home to a sick Leo, Chris had run out of the station in hurry and Nick was taking care of Gail, and Andy realized she didn't want to walk home. Her legs were still unsteady, the nerves from earlier still wracking through her system, and they probably wouldn't carry her home if she tried.

"Yeah. Thanks."

"No problem. I'll meet you at the truck."

* * *

Sam followed Andy into her condo. She'd been unusually quiet on the drive over and he wanted to make sure she was really alright. "You okay?" he asked.

When she nodded, Sam saw a look in her eyes he'd seen before. The look of fear, relief and lust all combined into one emotion. He'd seen it the night she killed a man for the first time. She took a step toward him, but he wasn't going to let this become another blackout, where her need to forget what had happened prevented either of them from thinking clearly. "Andy, we need to talk. I need to...I need to try and explain." Even if she didn't want to talk about the bomb, they needed to talk about them.

"Not tonight. Tomorrow. I need...Can we just sleep tonight?" Her eyes pleaded with him. She knew he was right. And they did need to talk. But she was emotionally drained. She just wanted him to hold her as she fell asleep. She missed his strong arms around her.

"We can do that."

He grabbed her arm gently to pull her toward him and leaned in until their lips were almost touching. This was a mistake. He knew they should wait until they actually talked, but he'd missed her, miss this too much. Shoving the internal debate out of his head, he closed the distance until his lips met hers. It was soft and full of promise, much like their first kiss when he was J.D. and she was Candace. Unlike that first kiss though, he refused to let it go any further and pulled back.

"I meant what I said before," Sam said, staring into her eyes. "I love you."

"I love you too." She reached around him to lock the door and turned around to walk toward the bedroom. She hoped he took that as an invitation to follow her and a small smile graced her lips when she heard him kicking off his shoes.

Once they were in bed, Andy laid her head in the crook of Sam's neck and rested her hand on his chest. Hours earlier she never thought her hand would stop shaking, but staring at it now, its only movement was the rise and fall of his chest.

Sam wrapped an arm around Andy and let the fingers on his other hand dance lightly up and down her arm, left bare by the tank top she wore. "I've missed you," he whispered.

"I've missed you too."

* * *

The End.


End file.
